


Mother-Tongue

by Idhren



Category: Beowulf - Fandom
Genre: Epic Poetry, Gen, Illustrated, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idhren/pseuds/Idhren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Whoever she was /who brought forth this flower of manhood, /if she is still alive, that woman can say /that in her labour the Lord of Ages /bestowed a grace on her."</p><p>Now with illustration by Meeks!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mother-Tongue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Port](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Port/gifts).



> This work would not have been possible without Seamus Heaney's marvelous verse translation of 'Beowulf'. I owe a debt also to John Gardner's 'Grendel', as well as Alivin A. Lee's 'Gold-Hall and Earth-Dragon: Beowulf as Metaphor'. Deep thanks go to my fabulous beta Morag MacPherson, who was a solid bastion of support despite her claimed 'tin ear' for poetry, and for peoppenheimer, who is a wonderful poet in his own right.
> 
> [Accompanying art](http://aws.mikaspace.net/pics/sketchy/mother-tongue-sketch-%5B02-02-2012%5D.jpg) by the talented [meeks](http://meeks.dreamwidth.org/).

  


[](http://aws.mikaspace.net/pics/sketchy/mother-tongue-sketch-%5B02-02-2012%5D.jpg)  


  


So. The honor-women in days gone by  
and the men who ruled them had grace and greatness.  
We have heard of their sons’ heroic campaigns.

There was Hrethel’s daughter, cup-bearer to the Geats  
soother of mead-halls, weaving peace between king and thanes.  
The All-Father favored her with beauty.  
She was not destined to be a queen in a foreign land;  
her father kept her close to home.  
Dressed in gold-finery, she served high and low alike  
performing the courtesies, setting other women to shame  
with her example. She was a right woman.

In time Hrethel gave this gem-woman to mighty Ecgtheow  
as reward for his loyalty, sealing the bond between them.  
The treasure-giver honored his thane with his only daughter.  
She became mistress of her own household,  
a balm in bed to the battle-hewn warrior  
and a comfort to his people.

Lightly she stepped in the mead-hall, listening  
always for words roused in anger or formal boast.  
The torque-bearer bestowed her golden favor  
with care, heart-sore with worry  
for Geat-land was beset with monsters,  
the great Hrethel hard-pressed to keep his borders strong.  
The Lord of All Things was testing his thane  
giving the shield of his people chance to show his courage  
and prove his war-band’s might against unnatural foes.  
Now noble Ecgtheow was called to keep his oaths,  
serve as counsellor to his king  
and battle-hand in the clash of combat.  
Hrethel’s daughter kept her lord’s hall-fire bright,  
beacon for his safe return, and brought mead first  
to those men skilled in words who sang the lore of the past.  
Sigemund dragon-killer roared forth  
in her mind, and she wished one like him would arrive  
to deliver her war-weary people from their afflictions.

Deep in the mere, a monstrous hell-bride  
gave birth to a shadow-stalker, a God-cursed brute  
whose name would be known the whole world wide  
as Destroyer of Heorot, tormentor of Hrothgar  
and the Spear-Danes. Grendel’s mother  
shrieked her pain to uncaring kin, Cain’s clan  
who would not raise a claw to ease her suffering.  
They cared nothing for ties of blood  
or ways of decency; no rings  
passed between them, no treasure-giver  
shielded them from sorrow or gave seat  
at the mead-hall to include them. The Lord God  
himself had outlawed them, forced the pain-dealers  
down into the cold-depths. So too men  
who make themselves anathema  
to the tribes are treated, sent away  
lordless into lands fit only for demon-kind.  
We must be wary always to keep  
the favor of the Almighty Father  
and not take his bounteous blessings lightly.

Ecgtheow’s wife, moon-full with child,  
heard the troll-dam’s cries in her sleep.  
She rose from her restless bed,  
commanding the hall-defenders post  
a double-watch, summoning retainers  
to alert the people, bidding her maidens check again  
the precious food-stock and mead stored against need.  
The good woman tended to her duties,  
steadfast in the face of trouble, a credit to her upbringing.  
Her first thought was always for others.  
As light-gold slew the gloaming,  
she let loose the reins of the household,  
returning to the shelter of her towering loom.  
War-hewn Ecgtheow found her there  
weaving story-threads, recording his deeds  
for the ages. She soon presented him  
with a son, the golden Beowulf.

No shining gold or handsome wall-hangings adorned  
the hall of Grendel’s mother. Once the dwelling  
of ancient kings, it now stood empty and useless,  
play-thing of monster and her monstrous child.  
The swamp-thing from hell was father  
and mother both to Grendel, teaching him  
how to slink and slash, creep and kill  
under the wicked cover of darkness.  
She praised his courage when he brought back  
his first blood-soaked mountain goat  
and tended gently to his war-wounds.  
The terror-monger grew strong and cruel.  
His flesh-lust spurred him to boldness;  
his ghastly dam could not dissuade him  
from raiding on the Spear-Danes, much  
as she feared for his unnatural life.  
The war-weaver gifted her son with magic charms  
to safeguard him from keen-biting blades  
and taught herself to piece together  
dragon-skins, making him a strange pouch to  
bear his grisly prizes away.  
She loved her son as best she could.

Beowulf’s mother did not give her son  
edged weapons as a boy-child.  
She gifted him with a word-hoard,  
honed his mind-trap against the lore  
she had memorized since she first served  
mead in a gem-encrusted cup to the veterans  
in her father’s great hall. She knew too well  
what gore his God-given strength might wreck  
on a man’s bone-cage, the grisly snap  
of bone-lashings and spray of life-blood  
in battle. She whispered of whale-beasts instead,  
taught her son dragons and sea-creatures  
and hell-beasts and giants and all that  
the Lord of the Ages cast away from himself as unclean.  
Too soon he left her to sit a fosterling  
on the benches in mighty Hygelac’s gold-hall.  
She had her duties, she could not follow.  
Beowulf’s mother waited to hear  
her son’s fate from travellers, his youthful deeds  
matched to old themes in strict meter.

She heard the death-song  
before she saw him: thud-cry and keening  
sped before him through the wood  
down into the burning mere-depths.  
Wrenched from her sleep, Grendel’s mother  
tore through the water, fear welling  
in her heathen breast, desperate to know  
what had happened to her only child.  
She came too late: his twisted body  
lay broken bleeding on the death-ground.  
No accident was this: a gruesome hole  
marked the shoulder-joint where his scaled arm  
should be. The tarn-hag screamed her raging grief,  
vowing vengeance on those who had stolen  
her son’s life. Like a man in battle  
who has seen his kinsman cut down in his prime,  
no blood-price could ever sate her fury.  
Grendel’s mother prepared her loathsome self  
to take up her son’s feud with the Spear-Danes.

Others can tell of the devastation she wrought  
there in Hrothgar’s shining hall. She stole back  
Grendel’s limb, Heorot's battle-trophy, and slew  
wise Aechere. Knowing she would be pursued,  
she left her revenge lying on the ground behind her,  
Aechere’s head waiting for his lord to find.  
Yet the Lord God sees that justice  
comes in the end; Grendel’s mother  
did not have long to glory in her daring.  
Beowulf, Ecgtheow’s son, took her life  
in battle, left her corpse rotting in the mud.  


That valiant man found his old foe lying nearby  
well-tended in a cave, golden rings  
and ancient war-gear piled high over his body.  
Beowulf used his stolen battle-light  
to hack off Grendel’s head and carry it as a trophy  
back to his kind, already anticipating  
the praise-songs and feasts to come in his honor.


End file.
